Ukrainian forces repelled a new Russian attack on the eastern city of Avdiyivka and were holding their ground in heavy fighting in the area, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his evening address on October 20, thanking “all our boys who are powerfully holding the defense and destroying the occupier day after day.”
Avdiyivka has been a focal point of the fighting in the eastern Donetsk region for the past several weeks as Moscow’s forces attempt a breakthrough.
Zelenskiy said Russian losses "are really staggering," adding that "it is precisely losses by the occupier that Ukraine needs."
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Zelenskiy and top military commanders on October 20 visited the southern region of Kherson, where they discussed the situation there and around Avdiyivka and Kupyansk, a city in the Kharkiv region north of Avdiyivka where Russian forces have also intensified attacks.
A Telegram channel close to the Russian Defense Ministry said on October 19 that Russian troops were "continuing the operation to capture the Avdiyivka fortified area."
Russian troops were able to occupy the ash pit of the Avdiyivka coke plant, it said, but the Ukrainian troops counterattacked near the village of Berdychiy to the northwest of Avdiyivka and pushed the Russian units back to the railway.
Journalists with a project of the BBC and independent Russian media outlet Mediazona said on October 29 that the number of Russian troop deaths in the war was 34,857. Over the past two weeks, the list has increased by 953 names, the project said.
The project counts only deaths established through open sources -- documents, messages from relatives, and data on graves. The Russian Defense Ministry does not disclose data on personnel losses and does not comment on figures reported by journalists.
Russian state media reported a personnel change in the top ranks of the Russian military on October 20. Citing sources, TASS and RIA Novosti reported that Colonel-General Viktor Afzalov had been appointed commander of the Russian air force. Afzalov was promoted from his position of acting air force chief, a role he assumed after General Sergei Surovikin was removed from the post in August.
Reports from the battlefield on October 20 said a Russian missile targeted homes in Kryviy Rih in the central Ukrainian region of Dnipropetrovsk, killing 60-year-old man and leaving a 57-year-old woman in serious condition.
"The enemy aimed a rocket at a dacha cooperative," said Serhiy Lysak, governor of Dnipropetrovsk, on Telegram.
The shelling caused a fire, which had been extinguished, he said.
The Russian military earlier on October 20 launched fresh artillery attacks on civilian areas of nine regions of Ukraine, killing one person, wounding several more, and causing damage to civilian infrastructure that left many residents without electricity.
Ukraine's Energy Ministry said in a statement that due to the shelling, power was cut partially or totally in the regions of Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson, and Chernihiv.
In the southern region of Kherson, an 80-year-old woman was killed in the city of Beryslav and her home was destroyed by a Russian shell, regional Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram on October 20.
Beryslav, like much of the Kherson region that was liberated by Ukrainian forces one year ago, has been systematically targeted by Russian shelling and missile strikes from across the eastern bank of the Dnieper River.
In the northeastern region of Kharkiv, Russian forces shelled the village of Kupyansk-Vuzloviy and the town of Vovchansk early on October 20, wounding two people and causing damage to civilian infrastructure, regional Governor Oleh Synyehubov said on Telegram.
Russian forces "fired artillery, mortars, rockets, and other weapons at civilian-populated areas," Synyehubov said, wounding two men and destroying a youth center and damaging several residential buildings.
The battlefield information could not be independently verified.